Three openings

Examples of standard openings and why they make sense The Italian Game; many openings start by moving the “King’s pawn” White Black 1. e4 e5 White starts with the King’s pawn 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4

Queen goes on her own color White moves first King always moves two spaces when castling 1 to 8 are called ranks a to h are called files

Comments on White’s moves: Prepares for castling on the King’s side Begins to threaten Black’s weak f7 pawn (only the King is protecting that pawn, and White’s bishop and knight can both threaten it). White’s bishop hinders Black moving a pawn to d5 Black could continue with the Two Knights Defense, … Nf6, but that tends to make for a complicated game. Instead, Black might want to play Bc5. Then White may continue with c3, hoping to later move a pawn to d4, which would give White a big advantage, but the less aggressive move d3 is a safe thing to do, since the pawns protect one another and White’s bishop can easily move out.

Ruy Lopez; The Spanish Game White Black 1 e4 e5 This is a King’s pawn opening 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nf6 Compared to the Italian game, here White moves the bishop further 4 0-0 Nxe4 5 d4 Nd6 6 Bxc6 dxc6 7 dxe5 Nf5 8 Qxd8+ Kxd8 Trading queens 9 Nc3 Bd7 10 h3

Queen’s pawn opening White Black 1. d4 d5 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

e3 Bd3 c3 f4 Nf3 0-0

Nf6 c5 Nbd7 g6 Bg7 0-0

White starts with the Queen’s pawn

White and Black have castled. This is a “closed” position—many pawns, not much room to move.

Chess notation: K - king Q - queen B - bishop N - knight R - rook pawns have no letter x - capture + - check ++ - double check # - checkmate ! - good move ? - poor or questionable move 0-0 castle king side 0-0-0 castle queen side

Pieces have point values to help compare positions Queen - 9 Rook - 5 Bishop - 3 Knight - 3 Pawn - 1

a

b

Bla ck c d e

f

g

h

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 a

b

c

d e White

f

g

http://www.50chessgames.freeserve.co.uk/indexsmall.html – excellent for beginners. Click the buttons, see the pieces move, read the annotations, see the chess notation. Once it loads, in the navigation bar to the left, select games. There are 50 games, mostly (if not all) games that the authors played themselves. Click forward to move the pieces. http://www.chessdoctor.com/chessdownloads/ has good advice, but no graphics Google “annotated chess games” to find more! Also read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess

h